When the wattlebird is still

This piece has been several different paintings along the way, none quite anything right, none ready to stand on their own.

And each time I worked on it, it became a drastically different painting altogether. It wasn’t a case of layers and iteration and adding and tweaking like it so often is. It was a case of ENTIRELY CHANGING everything about it. It started blue, then was a deep teal green. Then peachy pinks and grassy colours. Then RED. As soon as it was red (surprise surprise) something clicked.

We have so many bird friends in our garden, from the old cockatoo couple who politely look in our windows to let us know they want snacks, to the currawong mama who has just seen off this years babies as grown ups with their own patch.

The wattlebirds here are shy, we only ever spot them in little quicksilver moments as they pause in what they’re doing. I’m more surprised when I see the bounce of a branch and catch one still perched there, or hear the splash of water, to see one still happily having a bath in the pond. It’s much more common to only catch those signs just moments after they’ve left, and see the sweep of feathery grey and flash of gold as they wing away.

So here’s one of those tiny moments, when the wattlebird is still there 🫶🏻

Follow

Kate Conrick is an artist from Ngunnawal Country, Canberra, Australia. She is half of a ceramic duo, working collaboratively with her partner Josh Cubbin under the label JK Collective to produce contemporary, painterly and tactile cues ceramic objects to be used and enjoyed every day.

Ceramics is a painstaking art of time, process and careful experimentation. Kate’s solo artwork is a balance to this, with her works often created swiftly in one session, capturing single moments and fleeting impressions.

Her art, described as vibrant displays of colour and irreverent mark-making, is an exploration of place and landscape. Kate’s work is often inspired by deep immersion in a particular place, and is the expression of a lifelong sense of compulsion to express the feelings and impressions she experiences of the land.

Kate comes by her creative skill naturally. A deeply technical person, Kate completed a degree in Graphic Design and evolving through a career in commercial design and illustration, she went on to specialize in the design and development of digital products and services. She has won wide ranging awards for both her design and technical excellence as a developer, and has worked for an extensive portfolio of clients throughout Australia. She balances this intensively technical career with the careful craft of stoneware ceramics, and the brief and compulsive expression in paint.

Growing up drawing, painting and creating instinctively, Kate’s early work focused on beautifully rendered portraits and people. Her more recent work is almost all abstract, but all of Kate’s work comes with a sense of longing. For beauty, and moments, and memory.